Thursday, May 3, 2012

It's Official: GMOs on California's Ballot!

It's Official: GMOs will be on California's Ballot.

Yesterday 971,126 signatures were dropped off at locations throughout
California, the culmination of a ballot initiative to label GMOs in the Golden
State. The almost a million signatures, gathered in a 10-week period by
volunteers of the California Right to
Know campaign, is nearly double the 555,236 signatures the campaign needs
to qualify for the ballot. California officials will take at least several
weeks to certify the initiative, but people on both sides of the issue expect
it to appear on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are experimental plants and animals
that have been genetically engineered in a laboratory with DNA from other
plants, animals, bacteria, and viruses. Although GMO ingredients are found in
80% of packaged foods in the U.S., they have not been proven safe as the long
term consequences of GMOs on our health and environment have not been
adequately investigated. If passed this November, Californians will join
citizens of almost 50 countries including all of Europe, Japan and even China
who have the right to know whether they are eating GMO (Genetically Modified
Organisms) food.

At yesterday's Los Angeles County rally mothers, grandmothers, organic
farmers, and students came together to celebrate their collective work. Their
county's portion of the drop off contained 232,409 signatures. Each box
weighted 37 pounds, with the entire payload coming in at 188 pounds of
signatures.

The want to label GMO foods has the uncanny ability collect unanimous
support across the political spectrum. A March 2012 Mellman Group poll found
that 9 out of 10 American voters favor labeling for genetically engineered
food.

"In a country seemingly dominated by partisan polarization on everything
from the cause of hurricanes to the state of the economy, it’s hard to find
issues, outside of motherhood and apple pie, that can muster over 90 percent
support. In a recent survey for Just Label It, we found one...," pollster Mark
Mellman wrote in
a recent article in the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.

"Voters express almost unanimous support for mandatory labeling of
genetically engineered foods. An arresting 91 percent of voters favor an FDA
requirement that “foods which have been genetically engineered or containing
genetically engineered ingredients be labeled to indicate that.”